Burning Bright
by Focker9191
Summary: Based on Shinedown's song Burning Bright. Centers around Riku's life spent within the walls of Kingdom Hearts. PG rating for mild language


Didn't much like the way my last couple of updates worked out, so I figured I would try again with a clearer picture of what I wanted in mind. This is a test of what works better, so if it sucks it sucks, if it works than I guess I'll have to change my writing style. Enjoy

Burning Bright

My last years of life seemed to be a blur, a blur melded together into a large mass of indistinguishable memories, feelings, and thoughts. I guess this is what it is like to have your life pass before your eyes in an instant, it is unlike anything you could ever imagine.

_I feel like there is no need for conversation  
Some questions are better left without a reason  
And I would rather reveal myself than my situation_

It is over now. My questions, as well as my answers, will be carried to the grave along with what is left of my body. I will never know if I could have returned, if I would have returned. I will never know if Kairi would ever love me again. I will never know if Kairi _did_ love me.

In my final moments of life, I try to sort through what memories are on the surface, trying to find answers. Answers that I had already searched for a million times, answers that I had never found a million times. Such thoughts are and were pointless, if the answers to your questions where already in your head then you wouldn't have asked them in the first place. How much time did I waste finding more questions to answers that didn't exist to me?

_Now and then I consider, my hesitation  
The more the light shines through me  
I pretend to close my eyes_

_The more the dark consumes me  
I pretend I'm burning, burning bright_

Living in this dark, dank hell-hole, I have learned a few lessons about what life is…if only I had known them before. I know now that I first went wrong when I desired power, desired to never be weak. But living in solitude has shown me that in certain weaknesses there lies certain strengths. This lonely existence that I have been forced to live over the last few years has taught me that I misinterpreted hope and dreams for weakness. That is when I turned to the darkness that lay dormant in my heart.

The most important answer that I found a question to, living here in Kingdom Hearts, is not to deny yourself. To do so is the first step in letting the darkness into your heart. Doubt…that is the beginning of the end. For me, it was doubt of my own power, a doubt that I wasn't strong enough but others were. One thing led to another and I became what I did. I didn't pay attention to the signs, I wasn't true to my own strength, my only weakness. I know that people don't gain power from the darkness, no, it is the other way around. The darkness gains power from you.

_I wonder if the things I did were just to be different  
To spare myself of the constant shame of my existence  
And I would surely redeem myself in my desperation  
Here and now I'll express, my situation_

If only I could go back and make things right, a second chance. Oh well, hindsight is 20/20. It isn't so much that I want to back and change what I did, I want to go back change how I did it. All that I did was under the veil that I wanted to simply save Kairi, but what I really wanted was the power that came with saving her. The big hero was just a pretty frosting, I wanted strength no matter what the cost.

Some could call me two-faced. But that's not entirely fair. While it is true that almost everything that I did was for a selfish reason, the greater good wouldn't have emerged victorious were it not for my intervention. I was able to hold back Ansem. I closed the door to Kingdom Hearts. I _did_ save her. But even those actions can find their roots in the darkness within my heart. I held back Ansem to save my friends, I was still playing the big hero part. That was more for my conscience than their life. Closing Kingdom Hearts on myself wasn't part of my trip for power, but a new trip, a trip for atonement. I closed those doors in hope that I could atone myself, the thought of saving people from the darkness that reside here didn't even cross my mind.

_There's nothing ever wrong but nothing's ever right  
Such a cruel contradiction  
I know I cross the lines its not easy to define _

It seems that no matter how hard I tried, the darkness had rooted itself in far to deep to simply be expelled by mere will power. Darkness is far to smart and strong to let something like that happen. I tried to do good deeds, but they found their roots in the evil within me.

Once I realized the truth, the truth that this evil would never fully leave me, I did the only thing that was left to me. I fought. And for the first time in my life, I fought for the freedom of others, I destroyed the darkness so that others would not have to suffer a fate as horrible as mine. But the nagging thought never left the back of my head, why was I doing this?

Was it for the joy I got out of killing the dark little bastards that destroyed my life? So many peoples lives?

Was it a pathetic attempt to clear my soul of the horrors that I had committed?

Was it hope to see my friends again? That by ridding the universe of enough darkness I could balance the universe of what I had done and return home?

_I'm born to indecision  
There's always something new some path I'm supposed to choose  
With no particular rhyme or reason_

I have no power, need, or reason left to keep fighting the endless hoards of heartless that keep knocking at my feet. I have all of the closure that I need to pass from this world as complete as I could be. I know that in some way I had helped the big picture. I wasn't meant to be the master, I was meant to be the controlled.

Darkness now creeps over my eyes and my heart. But not the darkness that once filled me, a peaceful darkness that brings with it eternal rest. I am ready to leave, my questions forever unanswered.

_I pretend to close my eyes  
The more the dark consumes me  
I pretend I'm burning, burning bright_

Yea…I think that ended up a hell of a lot better than some of my old stuff, this "planning" might just work. Interesting. Hope you enjoyed and for those of you that thought I forgot…I don't own Kingdom Hearts or Shinedown or anything related.


End file.
